Powder her Face
at the Playhouse, Friday 15th October

The set is a vivid and wrinkled pink, like an extreme close-up of an aging face. The uneven expanse of the stage cowers under gigantic shadows. The singers move with ultra-affected carelessness, their faces quirked into tragedian masks with paint and aggressively styled hair. As a final surreal touch, a decapitated stuffed tiger, just clumsy enough to be an obvious fake, crawls down the wall, a light-bulb plugged in where its head should be. An aging beauty is waiting to for the concierge to throw her out of the hotel. The maid won’t tidy up and the electrician won’t mend her teasmaid. She has a scandalous past (the character is based on the once notorious Margaret, Duchess of Argyll) but remnants of her glamour still cling, and the servants’ contempt is qualified by envy. As the concierge walks through the door we tumble back through the duchess’ racy past and the four singers populate the stage with offhand friends, distant lovers, contemptuous lays and a pruriently judgmental public.
The figures are absurd caricatures: Graeme Broadbent’s priapic duke and slaveringly moralistic judge are especially funny. But at the same time, they have a horrible aggressiveness, as if they are extensions of the duchess’ need to cast herself as victim, hero and villain. Daniel Norman’s perpetual lust-objects were played with sullen contempt toward her; and Heather Buck’s viciously lewd scene as the Duke’s mistress constantly interrupts the erotic diversions with more gossip about her grace.
The second half details her divorce, decline, and slow fossilisation into her bills and prejudices. Bewildered, half-dressed, and infirmly tottering across the stage, Mary Plazas delivers an final outraged plea of extraordinary pathos, before her ignominious departure. In a vain attempt to upstage her, the rest of the cast set the stage on fire.

Jeremy Dennis